


let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany

by punkpadfoot



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (like major miscommunication), Canon-typical Alcohol Consumption, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Get together fic, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 13:54:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6009573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkpadfoot/pseuds/punkpadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mama had always told Bitty that people who said God hated gay people were wrong, that God loved everyone and was kind and good, but she's gotta be sorely mistaken. God definitely hates him. God is sitting somewhere up in the clouds laughing his holy ass off at him right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decinq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/gifts).



> for my darling codie! i love you! so much, in fact, that i was very nervous to write for you, but in a good way, because you deserve all the best things. you asked for The Quintessential Fake Dating Fic, and i can tell you that that's. not quite what i'm delivering. i took a...slightly diff spin on it, kinda, but i hope that, regardless, you enjoy this take on the trope. happy valentines day, angel.
> 
> this is my first time writing jack/bitty. writing bitty's big gay feelings is so different from the other big gay feelings i have written. PURE. sweet and pure. i love him the most.
> 
> also. thanks sarah, as usual.
> 
> title from "litany in which certain things are crossed out," but it's actually from a sad section of that poem so pretend it's not.

Jack’s hand is on his lower back. Alicia is standing five paces away, camera held between her hands. Bitty is looking skyward and wondering why he hasn’t burst into flames, or why the earth hasn’t swallowed him whole, or—

“Come on,” Alicia goads. Her smiles is soft and her eyes bright, amused, sparkling like the bottle of wine the three of them had split during dinner. Bitty has quietly been reevaluating all of the times he has insisted he _loves_ Alicia Zimmermann in the past few years since they’d gotten in her car mid-morning, fresh off the plane from Boston; you shouldn’t love someone, he reckons, when they go and do things like this to you. “Act like you like each other! Act like you _know_ each other, at least.”

“Maman,” Jack protests, even as he’s stepping closer. His cheeks are flushed and he’s rolling his eyes even as his hand slides from Bitty’s back, around his waist. He pulls Bitty closer but it’s not hard—he could easily step back into place, put the distance between them, insist that Alicia just take the damn picture already.

He doesn’t step away. He fumbles with his bowtie, guesses his face is probably the same shade of red, looks back at the camera, and grins. The shutter clicks a couple of times and Jack drops his arm and he did it, survived the impossible yet again. He wonders if his sixteen-year-old self would be impressed or mortified by the future. Perhaps a healthy dose of both.

“Not so fast,” Alicia says. “One more! Kiss.”

Mama had always told Bitty that people who said God hated gay people were wrong, that God loved everyone and was kind and good, but she’s gotta be sorely mistaken. God definitely hates him. God is sitting somewhere up in the clouds laughing his holy _ass_ off at him right now.

Bitty laughs too. It’s the kind of irrational, nervous, inappropriate laughter that people get at funerals or maybe when they see their own death coming at them full speed and know they’re too young too die but they have to embrace it anyways. The earth could swallow him anytime now—he’d really appreciate it, thanks very much.

Jack doesn’t look at him, just rolls his eyes again and starts walking towards her, reaching out for the camera.

“Okay, this is done, give that back now.”

When he returns, the camera is in one hand and there’s a glass of wine in the other. Immediately, he passes the latter to Bitty and shoots him an embarrassed smile, says, “Told you she’d be horrible.” A pause, and then, more seriously, “Sorry—”

“It’s okay,” Bitty says, quickly, waving his hand. He throws all of the half-formed wine etiquette that he knows and gulps, ignores the way it pushes past a bump in his throat that feels a lot like half-formed, stifled disappointment. “Really. Don’t be—I’m having fun.”

.

The thing is, Bitty knows he’s not always the most observant person. He’s not being self-deprecating, he just knows that things sort of—well. He knows his weak points, and he makes up for them with sunny smiles, enthusiasm, and a fumbling attempt at grace. He knows a lot of people are like this. Sometimes you have these ideas about the things and the people around you, and you get so caught up in those ideas that when something else is going on, you just miss it. It takes a while for things to fall into place, but once things click, his worldview adjusts accordingly and everything’s as clear as it was before. Or, well, as clear as its ever going to be.

He knows he misses things sometimes. But it’s also not fair to think that he should be able to guess that, in any possible versions of his reality, that this is the bizarre path his life has decided to take a detour down—that anything in the past twenty-four to thirty-six hours could really and truly be taking place. Jack’s hand on he small of his back is just the cherry on top.

He’s just a little gobsmacked, is all. He couldn’t have foreseen any of this because it doesn’t seem real, even in the moment.

.

The beginning is a little easier to swallow. It starts like this:

“Hi Bittle.” Jack is in Providence. It’s a Tuesday afternoon. The leaves are only just beginning to hint at the fact that they might decide to change colors soon and Bitty’s workload is at the early-semester lightness that still feels manageable. He’s in Annie’s with Lardo, watching her sketch out ideas for her senior project with the intensity of someone who knows she’s going to be very stressed very soon. He had only interrupted her momentarily to share a Snap he’d gotten from Shitty, but it was cut off when his phone began to vibrate in his hand and the screen lit up with Jack’s name.

“Hi, Zimmermann,” Bitty says, knows the smile is clear in his voice.

Jack huffs a laugh and amends, “Hi, Bitty.”

And Bitty, still smiling, says, “Hi, Jack.”

Lardo’s eyebrows have mysteriously disappeared into her hairline, but she doesn’t look up from the pad of paper on the table. Bitty momentarily considers kicking her right in the shin underneath the table, but decides to make his mama proud by taking the higher road and doesn’t. He knows that this is the higher road because any time he’s made a face at the way she dives at her phone when Shitty texts her in the past two weeks has resulted in a ridiculously bony elbow dug in between his ribs. He’d give her a pointed look right now, but she’s still actively pretending to not be eavesdropping.

“My cousin’s getting married,” Jack tells him. “Not next Saturday, but the one after.”

“Oh, wow, that’s exciting,” Bitty says, because it is.

“I guess. Are you busy? Not now—that Saturday. Well, the Friday before that Saturday.” Jack pauses, and Bitty can hear the beep of a microwave in the background, a drawer being slid open and shut, the clanking of silverware. “I mean—do you want to come? With me? Fly out Saturday morning and back by Sunday afternoon.”

Bitty pauses for a moment, considers the syllabi he’s gotten, pulls important dates that he’d shelved on the back of his brain for future reference, is coming up empty with any potential conflicts, but Jack’s talking again, quicker than before.

“You don’t have to, I just thought I’d ask.”

“I cry at weddings,” is what Bitty says, first and foremost. It’s meant to be a warning but just comes out as a statement of fact, like a lot of the other strange honest things that have been practically falling out of his mouth ever since Jack had come to Georgia over the summer. “And I’d love to. Go. Not cry, but that’s not really avoidable.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Great. I have to go, but I’ll take care of the flight,” Jack says, and then adds in a rush, “and you can pay me back whenever.” Bitty wants to argue that that _whenever_ sounds an awful lot like _never_ the way Jack says it, but Jack is already saying bye before Bitty can go there.

Lardo glances up when he sets down his phone, a silent _so_?

“Jack’s cousin is getting married.”

_And?_

“And he invited me to come along. That was nice of him, huh?”

Lardo gives him a cryptic look, says something about needing more coffee, and gets up, mug in hand, to head back to the counter.

.

Nothing really rings any alarms until they’re on the plane, and even that is less of an alarm and more of a tornado siren blaring right in his face— _how did you not see this storm comin’, bless your heart._

“Just so you know,” Jack says, taking Bitty’s bag and situating it into the overhead compartment next to his own, “my parents are going to be a nightmare about this.” Jack smiles, a little apologetically, maybe.

It’s an early flight, and Bitty still feels half asleep. He moves to sit in the window seat, something he’d offered to rock-paper-scissors for but Jack had given up pretty easily, and glances back, eyebrows furrowed, smiling a little quizzically. Jack sits next to him, and their elbows bump on the arm rest. Neither of them move. 

“I’ve met your parents before,” he reminds Jack.

“Yeah,” Jack says, sounds a little distracted as he scrolls through his phone, probably checking his emails once more before they set off, “but they’re always worse if I bring a date to things. Embarrassing, I mean.”

Bitty is ready to shrug and laugh, but he pauses, just for a moment, and that’s enough time for comprehension to catch up, just a split second. He turns in his seat to look at Jack, eyebrows furrowing. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again.

“ _Jack_.” He sounds strained, even to his own ears, feels his heart racing for a reason he can’t pinpoint. He’s suddenly very, very awake.

Jack is tapping out an email even as the announcement from the flight attendant rings out for all devices to be put on airplane mode. He hasn’t put on his seatbelt yet. The glance he shoots Bitty is quick, unbothered, but then he does a double-take and sits up straighter. Blinks. Stares back at Bitty, clearly confused. “What?”

“What—” it’s a false start. Bitty clears his throat, rubs his hands against thighs, feels nervous energy singing its way through his limbs. “Why do your parents think we’re dating?”

Jack’s eyebrows draw together tight, and he tilts his head, doesn’t say anything for a moment. Bitty can see a slow blush creeping up from around the neck of his t-shirt and, in a panicked thought, wonders how far down it goes. Finally, slowly and steadily, Jack says, “Because they asked if I was bringing a date.” A pause to let the words sink in. “And I told them I was bringing you?”

“Oh dear lord.” It comes out in a rush, and for a moment he’s sure Jack is joking—yanking his leg, teasing, noticed the way Bitty goes soft (well, softer than normal) around him and is calling him out on it, right here, on a plane to Montreal where half of Jack’s family is gathering, where he can’t slip away into his bedroom and hide his mortified face in a pillow for a few minutes before he finds the braves to face the world again. 

And then it clicks, and he realizes with sudden clarity that Jack is joking, actually. Jack is joking, but the jokes not on Bitty; he’s meant to be _in on it_. Bitty lets out a choked laugh, claps his hand over his mouth to stop himself from asking what he ever did to deserve this ( _I am a good person_ , he thinks, ridiculously)—a question that’s directed at Jack, sure, but that would give too much away. 

Jack’s ears are steadily turning red, and his face is flushed in a way that looks uncomfortable. He says, “I—” and Bitty removes his hand from his mouth to thwack Jack on the arm.

“You,” Bitty says, “are the _worst_.” He means this in multiple ways, but only continues on with the one meaning that doesn’t consist of overexposure and even more embarrassment than he’s already feeling. “I thought you were asking me to come as your _friend_ , not as your _pretend date_.” 

Jack has a strange look on his face when he echoes, “My pretend—” and snaps his mouth shut, the red on his face going even redder. “Shit.” Another pause. Jack busies himself with turning off his phone. Bitty’s heart is still wildly thumping away in his chest, and he sends off a quick _oh my god I cannot with this boy_ to Lardo before doing the same. “Shit,” Jack says again, and then, with a deep breath, “Sorry, Bitty. I thought—I figured you knew. I should have…said.”

Bitty buckles the belt and drags his hand over his face, smiling in a way that he hopes shows he’s very fond but still incredibly exasperated. 

“It’s okay. Y’all know how I am. Can’t even see things right in front of me half the time.”

Jack’s huff of breath sounds a lot like _no kidding_ , but he says, “You…we really don’t have to. If it makes you uncomfortable. I’ll tell them we’re not. Dating.”

For a moment, Bitty considers it. It would make the weekend a lot easier, not having to pretend to have something that is, in all likelihood, never really going to happen for a multitude of reasons, ranging from who Jack is to what he does and who Bitty is and, well, you get the idea; he’s got a list to keep him grounded. He wants to entertain the idea that one small taste is enough to satisfy his curiosity, that it’ll be really nice and just what he needs to get over this _thing_ , this all consuming crush (or, conversely, really terrible and make him grateful that it really was only for a day and some change). But he knows that’s not true, not how he works. He knows that that’s not how this works. He’s been attempting to exorcise this thing since sophomore year, through a variety of different avenues. It ain’t goin’ anywhere soon, and teasing himself with what it could be isn’t doing himself any kindnesses.

He should say yes, tell them they’re not, and save himself.

Then he thinks of Jack’s hands, wonders what one would feel like wrapped around his own, and he is only one man, a mere mortal, who cannot be expected to resist these things. If this were one of the Greek tragedies in the lit course he’d taken last semester, this is the part where the half the gods at least would be shaking their heads at him.

“No, c’mon,” Bitty says, smiling still, but it feels more real now. “It’ll make your parents happy.”

Jack studies him for a long moment, then nods, “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. It’ll be fun.”

It’s fine. It would be totally fine.

.

Alicia is waiting curbside at the airport to pick them up, grinning wide, and Jack has Bitty’s bag in one hand. He uses the other to take Bitty by the hand and lead him to the car. Jack’s fingers are callused but warm, and when he shoots Bitty a smile, he squeezes them around Bitty’s.

This is not fine. This is not fine at _all_.

.

It’s a backyard wedding, but not in the sense of those words that Bitty is used to. It’s less quaint than the one’s he’s been to back home in Georgia, everything a little fancier with the large house they (and a good chunk of Jack’s family) are staying in for the night looming in the background. The ceremony takes place in the early evening as the sun is setting. Bitty cries, as expected, and the food after is amazing, as expected, and Jack’s parents are completely embarrassing, as Jack had expected and Bitty refused to believe. 

Everything else sort of falls into the vein of the unexpected, and Bitty takes this as his opportunity to catalogue all these different things he never knew before about what it would be like to actually date Jack. He did this for research, after all. He did this to _know_.

Bitty learns that it means being led around with his hand in Jack’s all evening. It means being introduced as Eric, soft and fond. It means Jack leaning in close say something meant only for Bitty to hear in his ear, the bit of hair fallen out of place on Jack tickling against Bitty’s temple. It means getting used to Jack’s hand on the small of his back and Alicia getting misty eyed and a little too drunk and telling him, when Jack’s not looking, “I’m so happy. You both look so happy.”

He wanted to convince himself that each new additional bit of knowledge about this thing that he was pretending to have, that was temporary, would make it easier, something about the knowing that would help him stop _wondering_. There should be something cathartic in this, satisfying the curiosity, scratching the itch, digging out the splinter. 

It’s a little too late when he realizes that each new discovery is a pang that’s gonna leave a bruise come tomorrow.

.

He texts Lardo sometime around 11:30, fingers clumsy against the smudged screen of his phone, a result of the discovery of a table near the desserts where Bob and the bride’s father took to playing bartender. As such, autocorrect can only do so much for him, but Lardo responds to his _werre gonba make it through this, yaal_ with a string of stars and trophies and muscled-arm emojis that make him feel that it’s not quiet a lie. It’s cooler now, the backyard lit up with string lights that sway in the breeze, but the alcohol is keeping him comfortably warm. He’d extricated himself from a conversation with Alicia and one of Bob’s aunts that his couple odd weeks of French couldn’t help him with in the slightest with a terribly honest, “Goodness, I need to sit down,” but poured himself another glass of white on his way to do so anyways.

But it’s true anyways—he’s going to make it through this. It’s practically over, as it is, with folks saying their goodbyes and heading through the yard towards the house. He’s at the end of one of the long tables they’d eaten at earlier, in the process of going through his photos to pick the best few for Twitter, when Jack sits down next to him. Bitty glances around, but no one’s looking, which is almost a relief at this point, considering he’s not sure how much more casual affection he can handle.

“Telling the YouTube about how subpar the pie you had earlier was?”

“Ugh, stop,” Bitty says, laughing. “How do you always sound eighty-years-old when anything about social media comes out of your mouth? It’s awful. ‘The YouTube.’ Get away from me, I know you’re sayin’ that on purpose.”

Jack grins, shifts his chair so he’s angled more towards Bitty. Bitty smiles back because he can’t help it, really. 

“Listen, though,” Jack says, more serious now. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course, Jack,” Bitty says, honestly, because it would have never occurred to him to say no unless he absolutely had to. “I should be thankin’ you for inviting me, shouldn’t I? I had fun.”

“No, I know, but,” Jack starts, then stops. He taps his finger against the side of Bitty’s half empty wine glass, tracing a line in the condensation. “I know it wasn’t what you were expecting. How you were expecting it to be. And I’m sorry.” When Jack looks back to him, the grin is gone.

“Stop apologizing,” he says, and he initiates the kind of contact he’s been trying to avoid initiating all night, the genuine kind, the kind that’s only acceptable when it’s for putting on a show and not for when it’s just him and his friend who doesn’t _actually_ want to date him, sitting alone at a table. Jack’s hand had dropped from the wine glass to the table, and Bitty’s rests on top of it easily. He doesn’t want to think about how Jack’s hand fits under his just as well as his fits in Jack’s but in telling himself to not think about it, he’s thinking about it. “Honest, it was great. I’m glad I came.” He lets that sit for a moment before the wine finishes for him, “You’re a pretty all right date, y’know.”

Jack doesn’t move his hand, and his lips quirk at that.

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

Bitty blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, Jack is closer, and it’s disorienting. Or maybe Jack’s been sitting this close all along and it’s that last half glass of wine that’s doing him in, making the world tilt a little funny on its axis, sending his stomach swooping.

And then he realizes Jack’s going to kiss him.

The thing is, he wants to let it happen—he’s earned it, he’s pretty sure, this moment of selfishness that would allow him to take something that means more to him than it does to Jack. It would be nice to know, he reckons, since he’s spent all this (unbelievably embarrassing amount of) time wondering what it would be like. He’s got like, a surprising amount of pieces to the puzzle, more than he’d ever thought he’d find or fit together, more of the picture than he’d ever expected to see. This wouldn’t complete it but it could be nice. It could be something.

It’s not real, though, and he can’t. Can’t can’t _can’t_.

“Oh god, don’t kiss me!” he says, which is probably the most terrible way to reject someone you don’t actually really want to reject, sounding horrified at the prospect, but he _is_.

“Oh god,” Jack echoes, straightening up immediately, putting distance back between them.

“It’s fine!” Bitty says, and he’d wince at how shrill his voice is if he didn’t have to go, right now, immediately. He’s already standing and he’s not quite sure when that happened, but all the better. “Really, it’s fine, don’t—it’s fine. I just. I think I need to lay down.” He’s walking away before Jack can even answer because he can’t handle another apology when Jack doesn’t know he’s apologizing for the wrong thing.

.

Bitty pats his pockets and the sigh he lets out when he realizes he left his phone on the table outside is both excessive and overdramatic, but he can’t be assed to rein it in because this entire ordeal has left him feeling wrung out, and he’s still buzzed, and it’s kind of an awful combination. It had taken three steps on the stairs that led up to the room they were sharing— _sharing_ , he remembered, meaning not only did he have to look Jack in the eye and get on a plane with him for hours tomorrow, he’d have to do this part _first_ —for the enormity of his embarrassment at that outburst to thunk into his chest and knock the wind out of him. 

So he had done what he’d been wanting to do from the moment Jack had said _date_ that morning: threw himself on the (mid-sized, stupid, to be _shared_ ) bed, put a pillow over his face, and groaned. The next step was going to be to text Lardo (maybe we’re not gonna make it, y’all) but now here he is, phoneless and wondering if he has the stealth ability to sneak back down there and grab it without getting stopped by any of Jack’s family, who are all so fascinated by his presence—or, rather, the concept of Jack With a Date.

It’s a risk he’s willing to take, so he rolls back out of the bed, slips his shoes back on, and opens the door.

Jack is already on the other side.

“Jesus!” Bitty huffs, and then, “How long have you been standing there?”

“I was just bringing you your phone,” Jack tells him, handing it over. 

Jack’s looking just as awkward as Bitty feels, which isn’t actually an unusual look for Jack, but he doesn’t make to come inside. Bitty thinks he’s being given choices here—close the door and they won’t ever acknowledge it, or tell Jack to come in so he can listen to Bitty fess up. The first sounds unbearable after the night he’s had, and the second scary, the kind of thing that fundamentally changes everything.

He tries to compromise on it, steps aside to let Jack in if he wants and says, “Sorry I made it weird.”

Jack stays in the doorway but frowns, eyebrows drawn together. “Bittle,” he says, “I made it weird.”

“No,” Bitty says, and then he’s going for it, wringing his hands but still brave enough to look Jack in the eye about it. “No, I definitely made it weird, I made it weird this morning when I said yes about pretending to date you, I should have said no. It was just—” he cuts off, waves a hand vaguely “—I like you, like a lot, like more than is normal and more than you should like someone if you’re going to pretend to date them, probably.” His face is on fire. “I’m sorry. I just…wanted to know. What it would be like. And that definitely. That’s what makes this whole thing weird.”

Jack is staring at him now, different than the way he had that morning, not at all red-faced and embarrassed. He looks surprised, then like something’s dawning on him, and says, “Oh my god, Bitty.” Then he laughs.

And the thing is, Bitty knew it probably wouldn’t go over well, but he still has self-respect enough to be mad that Jack is laughing at him. His face feels hot and he feels stupid, but he stops wringing his fingers and drops his hands to his hips, eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, this is why I didn’t say anything before,” he snaps, which isn’t entirely true. He didn’t think Jack would _laugh_ at him. He’d been expecting something a little different, maybe to be let down gently, something a little less mean but still equally embarrassing. He knows Jack can be mean, has experienced it first hand, but they’re friends now. “It’s not funny.”

Jack is still grinning as he shakes his head, and he says, “It is, but I’m not laughing at you.”

“Really.”

“Okay, well, kind of—” Bitty huffs, but Jack presses on “—but not for the reason you think.”

Bitty purses his lips and keeps his hands on his hips.

“Bitty,” Jack says. “I wasn’t asking you to come so you could be my pretend date.”

That’s enough to catch Bitty off guard, and it takes a moment before he shakes his head, replaying the conversation from this morning as he says, “No, you _said_ —”

“I said that I told my parents I was bringing you,” Jack cuts him off. “ _You_ said it. That it was pretend.”

Bitty stares at Jack, thinks of this morning and the way his ears had gone red, the way he’d hesitated before he’d said _sorry, thought you knew_. 

His heart is beating very fast in his chest again, but for the first time all day it isn’t making him feel sick. 

“You’re messin’ with me,” Bitty says, and doesn’t actually believe it. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me that, oh my god.” He gives Jack a shove against the arm that doesn’t even jostle him in the slightest and then claps his own hand against his forehead. He knows exactly why Jack wouldn’t say anything—why would he, when he’s puttin’ himself out there and having someone assume he means it as a _joke_? 

“I’m not messing with you,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t.”

Bitty snorts at that, but feels a grin tugging at his mouth against his will.

“Please. You’ve been messin’ with me all afternoon, I thought I was gonna die.” He drops his hands, now both at his sides, and stays smiling at Jack. “You can’t tell Lardo. She’ll never let me live it down.”

Jack’s smiling too. “I have to. Eventually.”

“If you must.” Bitty tries to sound put upon and can’t, something bubbling up in his chest around the thudding in his heart that makes him feel soft and light.

“I think so,” Jack says, contemplatively. And then, “So, can I come in?”

Bitty doesn’t answer, just leans up on the tips of his toes to kiss him.


End file.
